NYC Building Management
Start with the credentials you can cancel in minutes and nobody has to pay for: deactivate every fob, card, keypad code and software login the person held. Then work through mechanical keys by priority, beginning with the building entrance and any door that leads toward apartments, and rekey rather than replace. A returned key ring tells you nothing about copies, which is the whole reason this is a job rather than a formality.
Staff turnover is routine in New York residential buildings. Supers, porters, handymen, seasonal help and relief staff come and go, and most leave on perfectly good terms. The access problem is the same either way, because it is not about trust. One person has been carrying the keys to the whole building for years, those keys have been in and out of a pocket a few thousand times, and nobody has an accurate list of what is on the ring. This guide is the checklist a managing agent, board or small owner can work through in order.
Electronic access is the cheap win and it should happen the day you know. None of it needs a locksmith.
If the building uses fobs for the front door, the practical lesson is how much easier that is than a key change. Our guide to lost building key fobs covers the same mechanics from a resident's point of view.
Almost no building has a current list, so build it from the doors rather than from memory. Walk the building and name every lock. A typical New York residential property has more than people expect:
That last line is the one that decides how big this job is. A super who carried individual apartment keys is a different situation from a super who carried a master, and a master key in circulation is the scenario that forces a wider change. See master key systems for NYC buildings for how those systems are structured.
Doing everything at once is rarely affordable or necessary. Rank the doors by what is behind them.
Building entrance, service entrance, any door between a public sidewalk and a residential corridor, and the key cabinet. If a master key is unaccounted for, apartment cylinders belong in this tier too, and that is a conversation with ownership before anyone picks up a phone.
Boiler, electrical, meter and valve rooms, elevator machine room and roof access. These are the doors where a bad outcome is expensive rather than merely inconvenient, and they are also the doors most likely to be secured with a padlock nobody has looked at in a decade. Our guide to roof door locks in NYC buildings covers the one that draws the most complaints.
Laundry, bike room, storage cages, package room. Real risk of theft, low risk to anyone's safety, so these can follow on a scheduled visit. See laundry and amenity door locks and package room locks.
Closets, offices, janitorial rooms. Change them when a locksmith is on site for something else.
Three different jobs, three different costs, and buildings routinely buy the most expensive one by default.
One decision worth making at the same time: whether to put the common doors on a restricted keyway. A restricted key cannot be copied at a hardware store, which converts future turnover from a rekey into a conversation. It is the single change that most reduces how often a building has to do this, and a do not duplicate stamp is not a substitute for it.
A master in unknown hands is the expensive version of this problem, because the master is the one key that defeats every door it was cut for. Rekeying a few cylinders does not fix it: the system has to be rekeyed to a new master, which means every cylinder on that system changes and every subordinate key is reissued. That is a project, not a service call, and it is the moment buildings wish they had bought interchangeable cores.
Two things make the next one easier. Specify interchangeable cores on common doors so a system change is a swap. And keep the master out of daily circulation: give staff the lowest level of key that lets them do the job, and store the master in the cabinet signed out by name. A super does not need a master to change a hallway bulb.
A short notice prevents a week of calls. Say which doors changed, when new keys or fobs are available, and who to contact. If apartment cylinders are not changing, say that plainly, because the question residents actually have is whether a former employee can still get into their apartment. A resident who wants their own cylinder rekeyed can usually arrange it, and who legitimately holds a key to an apartment covers the rest of that conversation.
For commercial properties and mixed use buildings, the same logic applies to tenants and their own staff. See when a business should change its locks.
That is enough for a commercial locksmith to quote the work properly in one pass rather than three. For single door changes, see lock change and rekey service.
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There is no single rule that forces it, and whether it is required for your building is a question for the managing agent and the building's counsel rather than a web page. What is true in practice is that a departing employee usually held access to more doors than anyone remembers, and that returned keys prove nothing about copies. Most well run buildings treat a staff departure as a trigger to review access rather than as a formality.
Electronic credentials, because they cost nothing and take minutes. Deactivate the person's fobs and cards in the access control system, remove their codes from any keypad or alarm panel, and revoke their logins to management software, camera systems and the intercom. Then work through mechanical keys in priority order, starting with the building entrance and any door that leads toward apartments.
Rekeying is almost always the right answer. The hardware is not the problem, the keys in circulation are, and rekeying retires every existing key for that cylinder at a fraction of the cost of new locks. Replace the lock only when the hardware is worn out, wrong for the door, or needs to join a different key system anyway.
An interchangeable core is a lock cylinder that comes out as a unit with a special control key, so a locksmith can swap the core instead of taking the lock apart and rekeying it in place. For a building that may need to change many doors at once after a departure, it turns a long day into a short one, and it is the main reason to specify these cores before you ever need them.
Only if the building changes the apartment entrance cylinders, which is a bigger decision than changing common doors. Many buildings change the common and service doors right away and handle apartment cylinders on turnover instead. A tenant who is uneasy about it can ask the building, and a tenant who wants fresh keys sooner can usually have the cylinder rekeyed.
Three things do most of the work: interchangeable cores on common doors so a change is a swap rather than a rekey, a restricted keyway so nobody can walk a key into a hardware store and copy it, and a written key log with numbered keys, a signed receipt at hire and a signed return at exit. Buildings that have those in place treat a resignation as paperwork.